To quickly review: use good metal like wheel weights with 2% tin added, use a proven bullet design (in this case the RCBS 200 grain .358" rifle bullet), make sure the bullet is sized perfectly concentric with a Star straight thru sizer, make sure the gas check doesn’t shave any metal off the bullet shank and that it’s fixed perfectly flat on the base of the bullet. Heat treat your bullets so they’re strong but not brittle, and use a quality lube, size bullets before heat treating so they don’t become work softened during the process. If you didn’t have a chance to read Part I and want to know the details on how to achieve these results, go to (Part One) for the whole story.

     Now it’s time to pay attention to case selection and preparation. In explaining his use of IMI cases (available at Widener’s), Rick stated that several years ago, Ken Light did an evaluation of various brands of 357 cases and found that IMI was the most consistent. Therefore Rick decided to go with IMI as well. Being curious, I decided to examine the IMI cases that Rick provided for the evaluation and to do a similar examination on the Starline cases that I normally use.

     However, an even better way to evaluate brass quality is to measure the uniformity of the thickness of the case wall at the mouth. Ideally, we’d like brass that has exactly the same thickness all the way around. Unfortunately, normal production variances prevent that from happening. The result is that when the bullet is seated, it’s not perfectly centered in the case mouth, but rather is pushed off to the side by the thicker wall toward the thin side of the case. The end result is that the bullet isn’t perfectly aligned with the bore when the gun is fired even if everything else is absolutely lined up.

     To overcome this situation, it’s fairly common for people interested in precision shooting to neck turn their bottle necked cases to uniform dimensions all the way around. However, pistol brass gets no respect from most of the manufacturers of reloading tools (Redding excepted) and often does not even get respect from the shooting community itself. The consequence of this is the fact that there are no neck turning tools available that can uniform revolver brass. This is probably the result of years and years of pistol brass being used in revolvers where the manufacturing tolerances were - shall we say - "generous". So it really didn’t matter if the brass wasn’t uniform, because the gun it was being shot in was as loose as a goose. However, things are changing, and when it comes to the Freedom Arms revolvers, it’s a whole different world out there. The precision of the FA is equal in every way to a hand crafted benchrest rifle. Consequently, it can make a difference if bullets are seated off center because of poor case wall tolerances.

     Now trimming. This is a very important operation for pistol brass. In many brands of brass , case length can vary significantly. The result is that when a bullet is seated in the case and crimped, the variable length of the cases will determine the amount, or "hardness" of the crimp being applied. Additionally, it will also determine where in the bullet’s cannelure the crimp takes place (low, middle, high, or maybe even out of the cannelure). The amount of crimp and placement of the crimp, in turn, can affect the consistency of the powder’s ignition, and cause velocity changes from shot to shot. Bottom line - we want all the cases to be the same length to avoid these variations.

     In this particular situation, we also have another reason for trimming our cases. If you’re familiar with the RCBS 200 grain bullet, you know that it has a long nose. If the bullet is seated so that case is crimped into the crimping groove, the overall length of the bullet will be too long and the nose will protrude outside of the mouth of the Freedom Arm’s cylinder. That in turn will prevent the cylinder from being rotated. Solution? We have to shorten the case length slightly. The standard length for a 357 case is 1.29". Rick had his cases shortened to l.278" which was just enough to keep the nose of the bullet inside the cylinder (barely). Rick likes to keep the bullet as far out in the chamber as possible to insure that the entire front driving band is inside the throat. The theory is that the bullet will be held in alignment as it starts to move and mean less opportunity for misalignment on the way from the cylinder to the barrel. This is a good procedure for most revolvers. However, the barrel/cylinder alignment on the Freedom Arms is very precise. However, you’ll note that some of my loads below involved crimping over the front driving band with no apparent loss of accuracy.

     Besides trimming, Rick also uniforms his primer pockets and primer flash holes to achieve the most uniform ignition. To do so, Rick actually designed and built his own machine that handles all of these operations. Looking something like an oversized shoe box with an overhead light, the machine turns something like five different spindles - each with a different function. The machine uses a fairly powerful electric motor so there’s plenty of torque and speed available to get things done rapidly. In fact, Rick says he can prepare 100 cases in 10 minutes (primer pockets). Not having a magic machine, I use an RCBS power case trimmer instead. It does a good job, but it’s definitely not as fast as Rick’s machine.

     He also seats and crimps in two separate operations. He uses a normal seating die backed out slightly so there’s no crimp. During the seating operation, he’ll start pushing the bullet into the case, then stops, backs off, and then rotates the case 180 degrees. He’ll then seat the bullet all the way in. If there’s any degree of misalignment between the die and the shell holder, rotating the case will help to minimize that. This is a method I also used for a long time until I started using a Redding Competition Pistol Bullet Seating Die. For exact seating of revolver bullets, this tool is a must.

     Let me give you an example of how well the Redding profile crimp works. While recently testing some jacketed bullet loads, I found that two of them were too hot and so immediately stopped. One load had a standard roll crimp and the other had the profile crimp. Once I got home, I decided to tear down the cartridges with my RCBS inertia bullet puller. It just took 2 whacks with the puller to knock out the 180 grain bullets from the roll crimped cases. On the other hand, it took 1 to 2 DOZEN whacks to knock out the bullets from the profile crimped cases. If that doesn’t convince you that the profile crimp is the stronger of the two types, I don’t know what will. It certainly convinced me.

     One last point about crimping, most reloading manual’s will tell you to chamfer the inside of the case mouth. The purpose of inside chamfering is to bevel the inside edge of the case mouth and prevent the heel of the bullet from getting scraped up during the seating procedure. If it does get scratched or scrapped, accuracy will suffer. However, that’s why we use the expander die to bell the mouth of the case. So there’s really no need to chamfer. It’s really a redundant operation for revolver brass. Besides, when you do chamfer, you’re removing metal and making the case wall very, very thin at the mouth. Actually, we want as much metal as possible at that location so we can get the best grip on the bullet. Bottom line - do as Rick does and save yourself some trouble and get better results by skipping the chamfering.

     Through a lot of experimentation, Rick decided on a load of 16.2 of H110 powder, ignited by a CCI 550 primer for his cast bullets. Indeed, this load produced very impressible results. However, since Rick provided me with a generous supply of bullets and his wonderfully prepared cases, I decided I’d drive off the road a little and try some other loads as well.

     For powders, I used mostly standard mag pistol types. They were WW296, H110, AA #9, and Hodgdon’s LilGun. I also used one powder that is not found in the general marketplace but is sold primarily to ammo manufacturers. It’s called H108, and is a very fine grain, some what faster burning, mag pistol powder. It’s available from Powder Valley - a major powder and primer seller. As of this date, an 8 pound jug of H108 is currently on special for $50. Check their web site at (powdervalleyinc.com). Good loads could be developed with any of these powders.

     There’s been some minor historical debate on whether rifle or regular mag pistol primers are best when developing loads for heavy cast bullets. In this particular evaluation I didn’t find any particular advantage one way or another. I had good performing loads with both. Since the amounts of powder I used in this case were not particularly great, I tended to use mostly mag pistol primers, however Rick likes CCI 550’s for his pet load and indeed it did produce high quality results.

     In the end, it’s safe to say that carefully prepared cast bullets coupled with cases that are just as carefully massaged will produce exceptional results in the Freedom Arms Revolver. In fact, these cast bullets will produce even better results than most jacketed bullet loads. Best of all, these bullets can be produced for very little money. On the other hand, producing top quality cast bullets takes time, so in effect you could say that you’re trading time for money. While there are people who cast to save money, I think that most enjoy the challenge of producing the best bullets possible all by themselves. As Rick has told me several times, it’s "a labor of love".

POWDER

PRIMER

BRASS

VELOCITY

SD

GROUP

WW 296

15.8 gr.

CCI

IMI

1410 fps

13

.76"

WW 296

15.6 gr.

CCI

IMI

1396 fps

11

.99"

AA#9

15.0 gr.

CCI

IMI

1508 fps

10

1.08"